Hi Karen,

You give food for thought, which I'm grateful for. And you make a lot of
interesting points, but one seems to best continue the earlier thought about
galas and a peaceful world, which I'm going to relate to rich women.

Keeping this in a design thread, and maybe even an extended design
definition thread, I want to include high-society galas as well as
humanitarian conferences as places where ideas emerge, and I want to include
both of those arenas as places where people can find others to collaborate
on that emergence. But for this post, I'll keep the focus on galas.

On a very basic level, money can help fund ideas. And rich women can
persuade rich husbands to fund ideas. But that's just one reason I think it
could be a problem to assuming that talking like someone in a group is akin
to understanding a group. And by way of full disclosure, having not been to
the venue, does not mean I don't know a sample of the people who have been.

Anyhow I want to consider rich wives who have nothing to do, from a
communication design standpoint. And as part of my extended communication
design definition, I want to include all socio-economic groups of women as
people who in recent history at least, practice communication design.

Within that definitional aspect, I would also argue that one of the things
that communication design can do is help create or dissolve "disenfranchised
groups." Disenfranchised meaning that what they have to say, as well as what
they think, doesn't count within the mainstream group. It indicates some
gate-keeping.

In this case, "rich women" is the disenfranchised group -- they have nothing
better to do than dress-up. These women are then not worth taking seriously.

Okay, so they're rich -- perhaps they should be able to take it or at least
expect it. The problem is that disenfranchised groups tend at some point to
fare badly in societies. Today it's rich women, but other women have also
fared badly. These include professional Muslim women, insightful native
American women, struggling immigrant women, and a maybe a certain Democratic
Presidential candidate (full disclosure again -- I was/am an Obama
supporter).

So, my extended definition of multi-modal communication design needs an
example of it's ability to help create or help dissolve disenfranchised
groups. 

That example needs to start with audience assumption. And before I start, I
apologize to you. I'm taking a snip because I think that the point I want to
make is important. But I know that it excludes many of your related points.

> but don't waste too much time in those events. Its generally for the
> rich wives who have nothing much to do.

If your assumption runs counter to my experience, I can "adapt my own
representation" (an homage to Ian) and develop a visual/verbal take on rich
women I know who go to galas and even seem silly when they are there.

Scratch the surface of these women, and you might find kindness, concern, a
sense of low self-esteem, or even a knowledge that you don't like them and
are secretly making fun.

So, in my example, I might ask my audience to imagine a rich woman. What
does she wear? What kind of house does she live in? How often does her sushi
chef stop by? Isn't she silly. At this point, I've used text and typography,
or maybe sound, so that you can build from your neural network, the space
for the prototypical rich women. But I want to challenge that network, and
use communication design to place some new images within that context,
because I know that my audience can't imagine a rich women (or insert
another more sympathetic disenfranchised group) who is anything but silly,
evil, stupid, scary. So, into that space that your mind created, I begin to
place pictures of rich women who are not silly. On the low end of the
spectrum, maybe they're self-medicating because they know that they're only
using a tenth of their brains. Or maybe on the other end of that spectrum,
they're donating large sums of money but not letting anyone know because
that would bring about selfish pride.

I could go on but here's my point. I would argue that communication design
that creates disenfranchised groups -- ones that we might as well write off,
even those that seem as if they deserve it, creates more problems than it
solves. And to nod to Gunnar's point, yes, it is still design. Dictator's
have used it well. My extended definition must include both positive and
negative possibilities because in the practical world, they exist.

But I would argue that it quits being design once it becomes audience
assumption. And that scares me.

From the other end, we also need to explore communication design that helps
rich women see poor academics as worthy of inviting to the ball. (I do know
which fork to use.) More seriously, if those women attempt to disenfranchise
you, then different communication design, aimed at their network
connections, needs to be developed.

You're a person of good will and influence. I believe that, and that's why I
raise this perspective.

Thanks for reading to the bloody end.

Susan


On 6/13/08 2:09 PM, "Karen Fu" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Hi Susan
> 
> I was about to go off and think of my Chinese Antiques and Chinese
> art problem and some domestic issues... I think I will make a quick
> reply before logging off.Its Friday
> anyway.
> 
> On 6/14/08, Susan M. Hagan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> Hi Karen,
>> 
>> I like the general idea, and I think that it's important. And while I know I
>> can be way too practical, I wonder a little if the high-society
>> gala/humanitarian convention dichotomy doesn't interfere with the kind of
>> peaceful world that I believe you really want to see. But from my practical
>> (daughter of a union worker) viewpoint, I believe that solutions (including
>> design solutions) can emerge from a variety of venues.
>> 
> 
> 
> I come from a modest family too. The reason why I got to go to those gala
> dinner
> is because of the connections I had in school (they are now top
> schools with plenty of rich alumni_and honestly, I don't exactly like
> it.
> But since I was there, I might as well play around with a glass of
> wine which I don't drink and talk like them. Its fun in that aspect
> but don't waste too much time in those events. Its generally for the
> rich wives who have nothing much to do.
> 
> I still believe poor kids do better thinking for the prime reason that
> they have no tutors and the only way to make it up the social ladder
> is to use your brains and learn from nature's textbook. Either that or
> you would pry your way to ask questions and answer them actively. So
> design entails a high disciplined sense of enquiry yet able to form
> different permutated sets of solutions.
> 
> These days there are way too many references for students to learn.
> And for that matter I think better thinkers come from the older
> generation.I don't mean to say we stop reading but I feel that over
> reading of books, ironically curtails your ability to think out of the
> box. Learning plainly from the internet do add tonnes of facts but it
> doesn't grow you methods. The essence is from nature, and when you are
> keep bouncing your questions back and forth and you keep working on
> the hardware, somehow your brain will click in with the right answer.
> 
> there are answers to every questions. And often the solutions are very
> similar in nature despite differenet methods.
> 
> Its fun.
> 
> The more you play with it, the better you are at it.
> 
> Enjoy !
> Karen Fu

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Susan M. Hagan Ph.D., MDes
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213